you might be sitting in front of your good friend computer now and ask yourself: „Why is this happening?! The only constant in my life in the last couple of months has just burnt in flames. He did it again: He posted something. “

Yes. That’s very true. I myself am still a little bit confused about what is happening right now. 10 months ago I was in Reykjavík, enjoying car accidents, hot girls (yeah) and rivers. Today I am in Swabia, enjoying bike accidents, hot food (oh yeah) and music. Life is a lively flow. And right now I want to talk about where this flow can carry you towards: Neverending wells of bavarian beer and dirndls. Swimming pool festivals in Hungary. Witch forests right next to your back door. Hooligan fathers&sons in Austria. Swan-hunting in Luzern. Foot-ticks in the black forest. The epicenter of jazz in Stuttgart. Strontium-tininess in scientific bowls. Posters everywhere. Weddings. The artistry of gluttony. Unfullfilled plans. Fulfilled plans. Like hiking in Austria with Reinhard. Yes, dear reader, I want to talk about five episodes of my life which occured during the last weekend. It centers around the relationship human – animal; sometimes it’s cruel, sometimes it’s heartwarming, sometimes it’s just damn sick. To make this fragments a complete story of the weekend I will add some spicy pictures! Enjoy!

1. Wednesday, 22.9.2010.

20.30: Theresienwiese, Munich. Just arrived, and before we talk too much we enter the Augustiner-tent and make our way towards the first Maß of the evening. Everything is cruel. So many people. So many old people (am I old?). So many dirndl people. So much music I never wanted to listen to. So much I have to witness, unwillingly. There is the Maß.

21.20: The last drop goes down my throat. I am standing on the bench and singing „Anita“, cheering and dancing with a 60-year old girl with a beer-reddened face. Another Maß seems to be appropriate.

21:50: Ein Prosit, ein Prosit, der Gemütlichkeit! Two maß went well inside and I like how people talk with each other without knowing who they are talking with, it doesn’t matter, because everybody is drunk, this is why everybody came here, to drink, to stand on the bench, to talk to foreign people, to hug foreign people, to tune foreign people, to sing, to be happy. Life is good. A third Maß.

22:30: Hütten-Schorsch is entering the band conductor’s podium, he paid 50 bucks and thus bought the right to conduct the band for one song of his own will. Life sucks. Three was one too much. Maybe a Jägermeister can help.

22:45: Drove Autoscooter. Successfully rammed several people. Conclusion: As long as you have a lot of money in your wallet and a strong will to drink, Oktoberfest can be great fun! But MAYBE it’s not the best idea to go there if you plan to go up 1600 heigt meters the next day.

You may ask – where are the animals? Yes, there are no real animals like hamsters or goats or dogs. Just interaction human – human.

2. Thursday, 23.9.2010.

The food in the Golling-hut tastes quite ok, even though the Leberkäs doesn’t seem to be quite the right thing for my beer-accustomed stomach. Maybe a Zirbenschnaps will help. I tell the young, yet-to-be-castrated cat relaxing on our bench the story of my day; he tries to scrape me. That’s minigolf, man, play with cats, get hurt by cats. But somehow I gain his trust: Later that night I was dreaming about being a hiking-king in Austria, hiking up the Seven Summits in single day trips – with a truck tire bound around my hips. But suddenly I wake up because my right foot slept in. I look around – where is the summit? Where are my ice axes? Where did my foot get stuck in? And then I see: it got stuck between the hut bed and the sleeping yet-to-be-castrated cat. Damnit, I share my bed with this little cat bastard. How many hikers have you been sleeping with like that!? Anyway. I like it.

3. Friday, 24.9.2010.

„Hey, did you see this? There was a sheep looking round the corner!“. We are relaxing in the last sunrays of the day at a steep slope near our hut, talking about football. Sami Khedira made me fall into deep, meaningful thoughts about football, so I miss the sheep. But it comes back. And it’s not alone. It brought its friends. And they are obviously ANGRY. They come closer step by step, staring at us with their devilish eyes, some of them chewing grass – they do it as cruelly and fiercely as if they would be chewing our brains. Crap, they want us. I back up, away from the path where the beasts are preparing to eat our souls. They follow my movement, slowly, ready to attack, cold sweat runs down my back, and then..!

4. Saturday, 25.9.2010.

What a watery day. No wonder the frogs are in a party mood. But where is the best party? Craig, he is one of the leader frogs in „Tha Gang“, heard from a friend that on the other side of the street there would be a pond where the hoes get craaaazy! Craig instructs his homies: „Ok guys, we all know this pond here is crap. The water’s old and muddy and the band is playing shit. This party is lame. We go check out the pond on the other side…Where my frogs at?!“ „Quak, quak, quak!“, the boys of Tha Gang answer furiously and start to move. Poor fools! They never learned to enjoy what they’ve got; the party on the other side sure is no better than the one they have attended so far. No hoes going crazy. The same band playing. The same oily water. But now it’s too late: Craig jumps ahead towards the street, followed by Sean, Dean, Fran, Brett, Joey, Stan, Claus, Peter, Cleve, Paul, Rannigan and Flint. Craig is almost on the other side of the street, he jumps, then there is a light…he can still scream „Hell yeah!“ before he hits the car and explodes into thousand frog pieces. And there is the frog stampede! Paul pukes. Fran takes Peter by the leg and starts to jump around. Dean, Rannigan and Joey join them. There comes the next car, this time on their side. It takes puking Paul silently, Peter and Joey with a blast and rips off Bretts legs. Stan, Rannigan, Flint and Sean decide to try it once more („Party, dudes!!“) and can hardly start jumping before a truck overrides them all. Fran has long disappeared in the dark, so Claus, Dean and Cleve decide to go back to the other party. „Hey guys!“ What’s up with me?! Help me! My legs slept in!!“ That’s Brett. While Dean and Cleve don’t give a fuck and jump away, Claus goes back and tries to pull Brett away from the street. He is quite heavy. And there is the next blinding light, here comes the sun…

5. Sunday, 26.9.2010.

To round up this whole thing, another human-human story here just a single picture from the game Sturm Graz – Austria Wien. The guy with the umbrella is there to save the player and referee assistant from the loads of cans, lighters and sticks which rain onto the green 90 minutes without pause. Quite pragmatic, and apparently quite normal in Austria. Also the children enjoy throwing their stuff onto the field, encouraged by their fathers. Oh yeah!

Compact and freethinking; harsh, but still a refuge; vibrant and calm – Reykjavík has a special charme in various ways. Here, music, art, sports and party culture do a St.Vitus dance with economics, history and nature, and all of them toast to the uniqueness of their country. Now that I stopped strolling around the whole country every weekend, I spend more time on exploring Reykjavík and its surroundings. Join in on a semi-chronological stroll through my block!

To start with the highlight: This is the car I drove into at 7 am on my way from Keflavík Airport to Reykjavík some weeks ago. The streets were frozen and I suddenly found myself and the rented car majestically sliding into a roundabout and the shown car. But as you can see, nothing really happened, and the guy I had rented the car from (more or less a guy who pretends to be a car rental but in fact just gives away his own car) was actually a little bit annoyed by my uninteresting story of some accident with his car: „You know, it’s Sunday in Iceland. Call me again tomorrow.“ When we met he was mostly interested in if the car is filled up with gas – probably he wanted to spend his monday driving down Laugavegur and listening to 50 Cent. Take me to the Candyshop!

As I at least knew now that it was Sunday in Iceland, it became also clear that I had to do something with the accident car and our time. So five of us drove to Hveragerdi, about an hour drive away from Reykjavík. There, a small, at first rather inconspicious valley leads away from civilization and into a overwhelming hot spring area:

After the exhausting 3-km-walk we reached a river which had about 40°C and kindly invited us to have a bath and enjoy the sunset.

Before we enter downtown for some big city life, another nature experience which is about half an hour bus drive from the city center away. This is the view from Esja formation, the house mountain of Reykjavík, to the Southeast (the volcanically active area ahead, for enthusiasts. öhem.).

On the way down (round 16.30) there was another sunset (they seem to happen more often here than somewhere else on earth), which made us all cry and hug for some time. I wrote a poem about it but ate it later to conserve the moment.

When the tears have dried and we’re back in Reykjavík, it’s time for 20 seconds of history:

Leifur Eriksson, son of Iceland – some random guy discovering America. This statue is right in front of the Hallgrimskirkja, which looks like this:

This church is the declared heart of Icelandic Protestantism and tells you what time it is every 15 minutes. Whether you want that or not. Maybe it’s useful to know that the church is about 100 meters away from the place I’m living. Inside is not much going on (protestant church), but you can take the lift to heaven for 400 ISK, i.e. drive up to the top of the tower, accompanied by angel-like children’s choir music in the lift. When you leave the lift, it’s very likely the bells are ringing in just this moment and happily greet your hangover-bedevilled brain. Once the eyes stop bleeding, you can also take some pictures there and see how small and clear Reykjavík actually is.View to the Northwest, the white thing is Tjörnin, the city lake. Almost the whole lake is frozen now, so the ducks and gooses have to crowd on a small area, which makes them very easy to hunt. At the right end of the lake, there is the town hall, where I was playing Florentiner Marsch last week with the communist marching band I’m playing with. Gauditime! My house, Loki 101, is the third one on the left of the first street leading away from the picture (if you come from the right edge of the pic). Easy!

Continued to the more Northern Northwest. Reykjavík 101, downtown baby. Leading to the old harbour with its fleamarket, fish restaurants, danish war ships, unfinished concert halls and amazing hot dog & sandwich places is Skolavördustigur. The whole area right of this street is the commercial + party heart of Reykjavík. You will find basically everything there (including Stuttgart loosing every week; but except for MP3-Players). You will probably meet the most people on a friday or saturday night at 4 o’clock. If you want to have real fun, drive down Laugavegur with a car and listen to Lingua Loca at half past three on a weekend. You’ll be the king! (Also notice the Christmas decoration in Skolvördustig and my house again.)Close-up of the concert hall the city was planning before the crisis came. There are still some information stands telling you how great everything will be when it’s finished…possibly in 2080. There is no money left to pay the workers, so there were about 5 people working at the whole site.

View to NNE. Esja on the other side of the fjord and the moon. The humble Southwest: Perlan, the half ball on a hill with some „forest“ around it, is the water reservoir of Reykjavík and also hosts an artificial Geysir. – It’s better than nature! The forest also serves as a great make-out plac, at least if you have a car. In summer, it can be somehow crowded and the unsuspecting Icelandic moss-collector is likely to get traumatized by some Hollywood loving. Right of Perlan is the Nautholsvík Thermal Beach. There you can swim in the warm water (today: 2,2°C) an/or sit in the hot tub and drink beer.

On the way back you can admire the beautiful domestic airport and some graffiti.

Back to Hallgrimskirkja:

View to the West. This is where all this fancy studying happens: Háskólinn Íslands. To the right is the main building + mensa, on the extreme left is Askja, the most appropriate natural science building I’ve seen so far. My way there:

Tjörnin at 10:30 in the morning

„Snowy streets? Wow, I have to post that on Facebook with my iPhone to let my friends know. Can you hold the steering wheel for a second?“ – I personally see at least 5 cars exploding after a apocalyptical crash 5 seconds after that picture was taken. In the background you can see the landing corridor of the domestic background. Safe!

Askja at 12:30. No matter how long I sleep, the sharp air and the frozen light wakes me certainly up. On my way to Askja I like to cite „Der Knabe im Moor“ and shiver.

After that intriguing stroll it’s probably weekend again. It happens fast. Last weekend it was our choir concert. I can so that much: It is absolutely recommendable to tumble from bar to bar until 6 o’clock in the morning when you have to sing the next day.

Another night with the amazing icelandic beer later it’s Sunday again. If you go to the main bus station Hlemmur and sit in the next best bus without knowing what you are doing, you will probably end up in a suburb area in the middle of a lave flow. Lucky children!

Yes, time’s melting away..Iceland’s 13 Santas (!) already scare people away from the milk, you can buy jólaöl (sugar saturated mixture of malt beer and appelsín) and soon it’s stingray time. It’s a precious family tradition to eat it on December 23rd and then puke together. I HAVE to organize an icelandic girlfriend until then so I can eat that stuff, too. -And that’s not the only plus!

As everyone knows, beginning of October is just the perfect time for some fancy camping in Iceland: The first snow is covering most of the country, you easily reach some minus temperatures in the night and the roads are in poor condition. Four of us took the opportunity and headed to the Westfjords with a ridicolously big, automatic Ford 4 wheel drive. Our contribution to climate change in numbers: 13 litres/100 km. As we had limited time, our 3-day holiday was the classic road trip in perfection: driving up and down approximately 50 fjords every day, we listened to the same CDs some 20 times, eating fast food and drinking coffee from time to time. As if driving snowcovered roads through snowcovered, glacially shaped volcanic layers in the most remote part of Iceland wouldn’t be enough, we actually had some touristic highlights planned. 1) bathing in a natural hot pot for at least for hours in Drangsnes, an almost abandoned town in the eastern westfjords. 2) bathing in a natural hot pot for at least for hours in Bránslaekur (where, btw, Iceland’s oldest fossils were found – you should be amazed! 2g4u). 3) Visit the westernmost part of Europe, Látrabjarg and do some kite flying there. We managed part 1) almost too successfully, so that a huge cat sat in my brain the next day trying to disembowel my brain. Part 2) was cancelled due to too cold water in the pool (less than 40 degrees is inacceptable.) The third mission was more or less accomplished again, even though the kite was freeing himself after 1/10s because of the little snowstorm which took place (Video will follow!). On our way home, we felt that we should listen to our CDs a couple of times more and made a detour to Surtshellir, the biggest lava caves in Iceland, located in an ancient lava flow (2km long, 700m deep).

See some pictures of the Westfjords, decorated with (more or less) fitting Icelandic music:

In front of this church on the way to Holmavík, Slash would most probably have had a great time playing guitar. The dramatic October Snow feeling could optionally be enhanced by the flickering motel light of the curch’s cross. This band would rather play on the graveyard in the neighbourhood: http://www.myspace.com/foraminorreflection

Back in Reykjavík, it was the Októberfest – finally back in “civilization”! Actually, they did a pretty good job pretending to be the real Wiesn. Maybe a little bit too good for my feeling. I played there a stunning gig with Lúðrasveit verkalýðsins, which is basically a communistic Musikverein (we played many of my favourite marches: Halt’s euch zamm, die fidelen Trompeter etc.) But this communist musikverein also plays other stuff: http://www.vimeo.com/3566584

Yeah, Iceland is kind of remote. But still, people live there – and where the human race settles down, alcohol won’t be missing. Manuscripts reveal: 15th-century-Icelanders fancied beer – with pretty well-known, somehow modern consequences:

Thinking of this tradition, it’s hard to understand why there had been a 74-year long prohibition of beer (yeah, just of beer) in the 20th century which ended not longer than 20 years ago! The reasoning indeed was crude: Because beer is cheap, people would get alcoholics immediately when it was legal. But Icelanders were too smart for prohibition: Barkeepers started to mix vodka with light beer to create some kind of „normal“ beer. The heads of state appraised the situation right and legalized beer on March 1st, 1989. Since then, this day is celebrated every year as bjórdagurinn, the „beerday“. May well be that being in Reykjavík on that day, you feel like in a 15th century manuscript.

Time goes by quite quickly, and stuff just keeps happening. High time to find some rest, sort the multi-coloured fragments, pick out the sparkling ones and somehow knit a nice little story out of them. But be careful: Long text. Pictures below!

Certain things go along with my stay here and sweeten my time. Filtered coffee. Sulphur. Lamb, oh yeah. And wet clothes, of course. On Laugavegur I had plenty of them, and they’ve been with me also on the one-week field-trip throughout southern Iceland. We were around 50 Earth Science students from all over the ea..no, in fact half of us are German. Despite some refreshing exceptions, like people from New Zealand, Chile, Australia, Norway and Finland, it was one big German-speaker meeting. I was hoping for something different. Nevertheless, there are a bunch of nice people amongst them, and also a bunch of nice English accents. The first one to mention is without a doubt the accent of Ármann, our leading teacher. He is a cigarillo-smoking original, living the accent many of us would die to have. In his worrrld, a valley becomes a volley, volcanic ash is in fact volcanic ass and the tertiary is a real tortury.

During the first day of the field trip, the two teachers tried to keep up the illusion that we were o na „geological“ field trip. On the second day then, things changed: we did a little boat tour on a glacial lake to take some photos and taste some glacial ice. On day three we watched a movie about the Laki Eruption 1783 which made us pretty clear that we will all die soon, killed by either volcanic ass, lava flows, toxic gases or by hunger (all our cattle will be dead and uneatable because of the toxic gases). If it won’t happen today, it will most propably be tomorrow. Inspired by this scientific movie, we drove three hours to Laki and took a group foto there. After that, we watched another craterthen our teachers became coffee-thirrrsty and we drove back. But the touristic climax was reached just on the last day. On our way to the Geysir Tourist Shop, which was the day’s highlight, we did several photo stops and checked out the regions cafeterias. But I won’t complain. We saw Southern Iceland, had a good time in the hot pots in Landmannalaugar, plus an excellent lamb barbecue. Given this, yelling for more geological facts is maybe a bit bizarre.

The day after the excursion, the „real“ classes started. Which means first of all a week of partying with the all in all 300 exchange students. The beer was cheaper than in Germany; once more, the advantages of the financial crisis became crystal clear.

Another thing which accompanies my daily life here are the bells of Hallgrimskirkja, the biggest church in Reykjavík. My bed is located say 100m away from these bells. They ring every quarter hour for ca. 5 minutes, which makes an alarm clock practically unnecessary. Well, at least I can watch the church while showering! My room not only features a big alarm clock, but also two beds and a way to small door, which my head will probably know very well after the year here. Our Landady is pretty cool, so are my flatmates. 6 girls and one guy, all the girls – you may guess – German; the guy is a Norvegian. All in all, Lokastigur 24a seems to be a good place to stay, nevermind bells, doors and a Speedy Gonzalez-Internet-Connection which makes me long for the good old 56k-times.

I got used to two more things last week: Brennevín and exotic food. These were important factors during my 5-day-stay in Greenland. I was there with a New Zealandic girl who had to leave Iceland for a couple of days due to visa reasons no one quite understood, and a guy from Switzerland. We had a really splendid time, including camping, amazing geology, landscapes, icebergs, schnapps, an international airport in a 128-souls-town, „greenlandic“ beer named Namminersornermi Nalliutorsiorneq (made out of and brewed by seals) to fuck up the stupid tourists hanging out there with too much money, a cop living la vida loca in the same international airport (I guess he has a really hard job there) and, of course: whale and seal blubber, which is, in fact, the fat of these fancy animals cut into cubes. Sounds disgusting? It is. But it can get worse: Dried whale is really a manifested nightmare, sticking between your teeth. I felt that this poor whale was bleeding to death once again in my mouth, and I had to suffer with it. Won’t do it again. Next time: Icelandic Horse!

(The last 5 pics ar from Landmannalaugar and Tourigeysir, the fucking amazing rest is Greenland.)

Thinking of Iceland in these days, one imagines people standing on the street, staring on any wall, silently shaking their head from time to time – the agony of the financial crash which captured the vulnerable Icelander’s soul and made every single day a slow-motion-fight against the empty and senseless life. Well, it’s not quite like that. Last Wednesday, the breaking news on TV was that Olafur „The Pig“ Grimsson, Iceland’s Prime Minister, had been fallen of a horseback. Now that’s agony at its best.

People don’t seem to be too destroyed by this sick life: the SUVs are still cruising down Laugavegur, noble restaurants are packed, monumental, patriotic fireworks are celebrated during last Saturday’s culture night, and yes: they are laughing!

Ok, I don’t want to put lipstick on the pig: there are very many construction sites where two or three people are pretending to work, just because it would be too expensive to stop the project. For example the ambitious project of a national music hall at the harbour, made of glass (thinking of Sydney?) and serving 5000 people. Extrapolating the current working velocity, it will be finished in 2200.

But in fact, I don’t sense a deep uncertainty or despair in Reykjavík. It’s just as it was when I was here in 2006. Apart from the fact that everything costs the half.

If the financial crisis made you believe that this capitalist world is just crap, it’s maybe time to do a little walk in Icelandic nature. This is what I did (regardless of economy): a 6-day-walk from Skógar at the southern coast to Landmannalaugar, a geothermal spot with colourful rhyolite hills and 40°C hot rivers. The first three days were seulement terrible (in a positive sense), as the french people I was travelling with used to say most of the time. Ash desert, surrounded by glaciers, „forests“ at the edge of huge glacial rivers, lava flow plains, more ash desert, moss-green mountains, elve lakes. Yes, terrible. But the next two days unfortunately didn’t bring as much pleasure. Strong winds coming from North counterparted our trip to the North, accompanied by a nice, steady rain which defeaned one’s face. I found it funny in a peculiar way. After one hour, I ceased finding it funny and started insulting the wind in a Bushido-like manner. It helped, indeed, and after 4 hours of hating, we arrived at the rescuing hut. Comments of the warden there: „Yes, it’s bad weather, but it’s not very bad weather“; „Haw, haw, haw, this is no storm, otherwise we wouldn’t let tourist walk the track!“. Well, ok, I never want to experience a real storm in the Icelandic Highlands!

It’s summer in Germany, but in Iceland, the leaves of the „trees“ are turning brown. The nights get longer. The rain pours down in a snowy way. Soon, the first ice bears will come back on some icebergs, returning from their summer sleep in Greenland. The sharks stop fermenting. The schnapps gets harder. Coffee stronger. Kronur weaker. World Trade Center boom.

Well, all in all, summer is most probably over in Iceland. Perfect moment for me to head to Reykjavík to get the best out of the Icelandic wintertime! At the University, okay, but who cares, rock n roll, botninn up! If you care about my progress in studying geology or my adventures in grài katurinn, this is the right place to check by from time to time! I will write, oh yes.

Yo. It is only some money. Some money to convert trouble into some sparkling drinks right under the sunset of a midsummer day. Midsummer day? Music. Yes Yes Yes. While being sure vodka is poured in an ice-filled glas. Yes.

Trouble is a mere interpretation and yes, some interpretations turn out to be more shared than others – is Facebook an constructivistic medium? This is were the trouble begins. In fiction and fact. Cheers!

Yes. We considered it. For a very long time. We talked. We created. We deconstructed. We enhanced. And then, finally, we just did it! And so, here it is:

The Herra Héri Orchestra – Squirrelish Intonations EP

Yeah, my friends! This very CD is the delicious fruit of more than two years of exploring the world of Herra Héri. Sometimes this world is pulsing orange, sometimes it is an explosion of light; sometimes it is capricious and silent. Sometimes a flash of hope, sometimes stroboscopic – by any means, the world of Herra Héri finds it musical expression in the unity of bass, guitar, trombone and voice. In this sense, the Squirrelish Intonations EP captures the spirit of the many nights we spend together recording, drinking and flattering ourselves.

What I want to say with all these pathetic words is: The Squirrelish Intonations EP is one mighty piece of music! And if that wasn’t enough, the music is rolled up in a dazzling package of words, pictures and collages (some people would call it „booklet“).

So, if you are interested in this marvellous piece of work created by the Herra Héri Orchestra, just contact me and open up for the amazing colourstreams!

It happens to everybody. Even the great Odysseus (some of you maybe remember his famous quest through the labyrinth (unnecessary to mention his fight with the evil and notorious Cyclop here)): Sometimes it is hard to maintain grip on live, to stay warm and nice with yourself having chats in front of the chimney with a nice Earl Grey and the friendly glowing warmth of coal.

No. Even Odysseus did not always welcome himself warmly to accomodate between his eyes. Sometimes (and very likely even often) he was probably also keen on giving himself a good discussion between his lobes (not to speak of the difficult situation concerning his language centres, which would then be obliged to mediate between speaking and understanding respectively).

Thinking of this, it might be good to know , that the labyrinth issue was finally solved by red wool. Something which has really nothing in common with any person but is (and surely was) produced by machines. Red Wool! Red Wool gives orientation in the windy paths of the labyrinth. You can imagine how happy O. was.

Take a click!

—Advertisement—

Squirrellicious! Herratious! Don't know the words? Go get your HERRA HERI vocabulary NOW!!! Contains up to 50 new herrific words to confuse friends and family.
And if you place your order during this spot, you´ll receive the herratastic sticker displayed above to show off your attitude.
Go, GET IT! First 10 orders will receive a SPECIAL EDITION, signed by Mr. J. Squirrel Phd. himself! This is nuts, man! Wanna order? - Dial 1-800-SQUIRREL!